<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2018 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => '<code>alchemy</code>',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2018/07/22.jpg" alt="A white flower in the garden" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			It sounds like you frequently have tough decisions to make.
			While you don&apos;t have the final say with these students, you do have to act as a first judge, deciding whether or not they deserve your advocacy.
		</p>
		<p>
			I&apos;d extend your imperative to be &quot;be faithful to your partner&quot;.
			Even before marriage, it&apos;s expected you won&apos;t cheat on your partner during your dating period.
			Once two people decide they hit it off, they usually expect exclusivity from their loved one.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="Minetest">
	<h2>Minetest</h2>
	<p>
		Not too long ago, I mentioned <code>alchemy2</code>, a mod I&apos;ve been working on secretly.
		It was to add 253 hybrid materials that would cost points earned via mining to synthesise.
		You&apos;d have to mine a full stack of each of the two materials you wanted to hybridise, so the materials were to be exceptionally rare.
		Crafting things out of these materials was to be an ordeal, as you&apos;d have to mine two full stacks of materials for each ingredient in your recipe.
		Given that, items crafted would be extraordinary in their usefulness.
	</p>
	<p>
		There was going to be an alchemy table, used for performing alchemy.
		When you first placed the table, it&apos;d be useless, but in several hours, the table would warm up and you could begin alchemising.
		The idea was that you couldn&apos;t perform alchemy on the go.
		You couldn&apos;t just bring a table with you when mining.
		You needed a more-permanent lab to work in.
		Otherwise, there would be no real point in the table at all.
		You might as well just have alchemy as an option in the main inventory menu, like regular crafting.
	</p>
	<p>
		<code>alchemy2</code> was so-named because it allowed for two-item alchemy to be performed.
		A hypothetical <code>alchemy3</code>, for example, might but would probably not be built.
		<code>alchemy3</code> would use a separate point system, because points are so time-consuming to get.
		That way, you wouldn&apos;t have to choose between <code>alchemy2</code> items and <code>alchemy3</code> items.
	</p>
	<p>
		<code>alchemy2</code> has now been streamlined and generalised though.
		In fact, it&apos;s no longer called <code>alchemy2</code>, but just <code>alchemy</code>.
		I think I want to colourise the chat text output of the mod, but other than that, the thing&apos;s complete.
		It has no items though.
		Alchemy has been moved to the main crafting page of the inventory menu.
		Instead of costing points to synthesise materials, it instead costs points to perform &quot;research&quot;, which unlocks a given alchemic recipe.
		This provides a simple progress mechanic; many things aren&apos;t buildable until you can make enough progress to unlock the recipes.
		Once the recipe is unlocked, using the recipe just costs one of each of the ingredient items, similar to regular crafting.
		After first setting up the alchemic recipes to allow any number of each ingredient, I reprogrammed it to treat recipes as identical if they contained all the same ingredients, regardless of how many of each ingredient was present.
		Now, when performing alchemy, only one of each ingredient is lost, regardless of how many appear in the crafting grid.
		Items no longer need to be over-powered to offset their previously-extreme point costs.
		I&apos;ll do my best to make each of the craftable items interesting in some way, but you&apos;re not going to need to regret wasting your precious points on the wrong materials.
	</p>
	<p>
		Like I said, <code>alchemy</code>, by design, no longer includes any of the recipes.
		Those will be added by other mods.
		I think I&apos;ll finish all the mods needed for the two-item alchemisations before releasing <code>alchemy</code>.
		That&apos;ll allow potential users to see much of what <code>alchemy</code> can do.
		From there, I&apos;ll work on the one-item alchemisations, which will all be in a single mod.
		I&apos;ve got that mod planned out pretty well, but it&apos;s still going to be boring compared to two-item alchemy, so I want two-item alchemy to be what&apos;s seen first.
		From there, I&apos;ll continue working on mods that build things out of the materials supplied by two-item alchemy while slowly building up ideas for three-item alchemy.
		Because alchemy now takes place in the regular crafting grid, I can define recipes with up to nine ingredients before I&apos;ve got to worry about expanding in some way.
		I probably won&apos;t make it quite that far though.
		Even three-item alchemy will be largely unnecessary.
	</p>
	<p>
		There&apos;s currently an anomaly that allows the definition of a zero-item alchemy recipe.
		Since there&apos;s only one combination of zero items, there can only be one zero-item alchemic recipe.
		Since no elements are included, unlocking that recipe, if defined, would cost zero points.
		It can be unlocked without putting in any effort.
		And since it uses no ingredients, it would allow you to pull an unlimited amount of something out of nothing.
		To avoid breaking the game, the recipe would need to yield an essentially-useless item.
		I&apos;ll probably do one of two things at some point: either disallow zero-item alchemic recipes or remove the need to pay zero points to unlock such a recipe.
		It&apos;d just be unlocked from the start, if defined.
		I&apos;m leaning toward banning such recipes though.
		Such a recipe would defy the purpose of the <code>alchemy</code> mod: providing a progression mechanic.
		Starting with something or unlocking it without any effort isn&apos;t really in the spirit of <code>alchemy</code>.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="recipe">
	<h2>Ranch dressing recipe</h2>
	<p>
		The ranch dressing separated again!
		Even using lime juice instead of vinegar, the dressing separates.
		There&apos;s no point in using lime juice then.
		It tastes <strong>*much*</strong> better with the vinegar, and the vinegar should also act as a preservative, while lime juice doesn&apos;t.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
